Shorelines

Here I am
Standing on an earthquake again
Dancing on the shifting sand

Half grasping
For
Some solid ground,

Half surrendered. 
Waiting
For the bottom
To drop out
One more time.


She's a persistent bitch - 
You know the one.
Great mother, 
Madam universe,

She who laughs and cries,
Giving birth
In every moment,

From the infinite entropic womb
To the waiting brilliant void.

Or is it
The other way around?


We are all just
Wailing toddlers

Crawling after the echoes
of her heartbeat
As she weans us to this world;  

Grasping at mirages of her breast - 
Purpose, home, money, work,
Even
Love. 


There are no still points 
In this human life.

No money, no marriage,
Not even a good bedtime story 
Can comfort us like her milk. 

And when we seek it,
We become like stagnant ponds - 
Muddy, scummy,
Undrinkable; 

Rotting
In our resistance
Of her deep movements,

And how they sing
Their sweet violence
To the shore. 


She thrashes us 
In perfect intervals,

Disrupts our plans
With her tidal reminders

To stop
pretending. 


We can surrender
To her undertow,
Or we can fight,
And die drowning. 

And as we let go,
She takes us to the bottoms - 
To that place
Of truth underneath
All the tumult,
To that place where there is,
Finally, 

A stillness.


And once you touch it,
Once she rocks you
In her deep blue lap,

Then it's not so easy
To go back
To the usual graspings. 

It's harder to muster
The fear that's required 
For believing in things 
Like career plans, true love, 
A life purpose, 
Yourself. 


It's hard to believe
In anything much - 
Just the breath,

The deep ocean
Inside
Of each moment

And the poem
That can speak
From all manner
Of waters.